Union strikes would harm ordinary working Britons - EXPRESS COMMENT

UNION bosses are planning a series of public sector strikes to try to force the Government into paying workers more.

Mark Serwotka, the general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union

Mark Serwotka, leader of the Public and Commercial Services Union, even floated the possibility of co-ordinated action, a selfish tactic that would cause chaos.

It is easy to sympathise with public sector employees who are unhappy with the Government’s pay cap. It would be lovely to shower doctors, nurses and whoever else with cash. Sadly it is simply unaffordable.

The Government still spends far more than it raises in taxes and has to show restraint.

Mass strikes do nothing to change this simple equation. All they do is make the lives of ordinary hardworking Britons even tougher, an unacceptable step when wages across the board are rising slowly and many private sector workers have fared even worse than their public sector counterparts.

Every time hard-Left union bosses call a strike it just means more stress, expense and inconvenience for everybody who relies on vital public services. Let’s hope their Left-wing posturing does not translate into industrial action.

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A child cannot consent

PA

Sammy Woodhouse has been refused a payout over abuse by jailed Arshid Hussain

SAMMY WOODHOUSE, a victim of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham, was told that she could not have a full payout because the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority believed she consented to the abuse. This was despite the fact that she was just 14 when the abuse began and that the perpetrator was jailed for his crimes.

The suggestion that she consented is indicative of the mindset adopted by a range of authority figures involved in the Rotherham scandal. These were people who should have been looking out for vulnerable youngsters yet instead, time and again, they regarded the victims as troublemakers who knew exactly what they were doing.

It is shocking that even after the terrible crimes of the predatory men involved had been exposed some of them still continued to hold this attitude.

No 14-year-old girl could ever possibly provide proper consent to the sort of dreadful treatment Ms Woodhouse suffered. It is appalling that anybody should need reminding of this fact.